Tag Archives: cricut maker

Today I’m happy to share a simple and fun Flying Geese Table Runner project I made using the Cricut Maker. With Easter approaching and my table bare, I wanted to put together a quick project that could brighten the room for Easter, and really all year long. This table runner was also one of the first things I designed in the Cricut Design Space, so I wanted to keep it fairly simple while also using as many Cricut Maker features as I could! You can read a full review of my new Cricut Maker here.

This post is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. All opinions and text are my own. This Flying Geese Table Runner includes both traditional piecing and embroidery or hand quilting. If you don’t have a Cricut Maker, I’ve included cutting instructions and a pdf as well, so anyone can make it!

Note that if you do not have a Cricut Maker, you will also need a washable fabric marking tool, printer to print the embroidery template, and light box or other bright surface to facilitate tracing the embroidery template onto your fabric.

Now for the fun!

Using the Cricut Maker

Prepare your mats as instructed, smoothly spreading your fabric onto your 12″x24″ FabricGrip mat. The Cricut Maker will lead you through the entire process, so simply follow the screen instructions and let the Cricut Maker work its magic!

The Cricut Maker will both draw the washable embroidery guide lines AND cut the larger rectangle for you!

When I designed the drawn geese section, I designated the geese shapes as draw lines rather than cut lines and ATTACHED them to a larger cut background rectangle, about 11 1/2″ x 13 1/2″ in size so that they would be easier to embroider. For those of you designing for your Cricut Maker, this is key to remember when you want to combine both cut lines and drawn lines! Also, many thanks to Julie at Intrepid Thread for teaching me how to do this! If you’re a quilter getting to know your Cricut Maker, I highly recommend checking out Julie’s how-to resources both on her blog and YouTube channel!

The Cricut Maker will also prompt you to cut squares of your focal fabric, small squares of background fabric, and some background rectangles. Once the fabric is cut, carefully remove the excess fabric, revealing your perfectly cut shapes. Carefully remove the fabric from the mats, and then get ready to sew!

You will also need to cut a 19 1/2″ x 13 1/2″ rectangle of background fabric with your rotary cutter and mat for the center portion of the table runner. You can easily shorten or lengthen your table runner by adjusting the dimensions of this center panel accordingly. It should always be 13 1/2″ wide, but can be as long or short as needed to fit your table.

Preparation Instructions if you don’t have a Cricut Maker

If you don’t have a Cricut Maker, here’s how you can cut and prepare your fabric using a rotary cutter, mat, washable fabric pen, and lightbox or other light source.

We will use the backing of the table runner as the binding, so will keep the backing fabric as a whole 1/2 yard cut until after quilting.

Download the Flying Geese Table Runner Embroidery Template-Night Quilter Printable, print on your computer at 100% scale, tape the two pages together along the match line, and trace onto your 11″ x 13 1/2″ rectangle of background fabric using a washable fabric pen. Be sure to center the template so that there is at least 1/2″ of fabric on both sides of the geese and 1″ above and below the geese.

Once all of your cutting and prepping is complete, it’s time to get stitching!

Embroidering the Accent Geese

The embroidered accent geese are meant to add some subtle accent interest to your table runner, since hand stitching of any kind (in my mind) adds a special touch. Especially with a project that will be seen often, those hand stitches can echo the sharp aesthetic of the pieced flying geese.

Gather your embroidery hoop, background fabric with your flying geese drawn on, and a thick 12wt thread, embroidery floss, or perle cotton in a coordinating color. I chose to use Aurifil 12wt thread in 2435-Peachy Pink since it’s a subtle echo of the geese that pulls the beautiful coral color from the Twinklestar in Berry fabric.

You can use the drawn embroidery guides to do any type of embroidery you want. I chose to do a simple running stitch around each flying goose, but feel free to get creative! Chain stitch would me another fun stitch to use to outline each goose, you could echo the stitching inside each goose as well, or even fill the geese with french knots!

Note that if you choose to use a more dense embroidery design, you may want to layer another piece of white fabric or use an interfacing stabilizer behind your panel. Yet another creative option would be to wait on the stitching, assemble your table runner, and then use the drawn guide lines to hand quilt around each goose, stitching through all three layers of the table runner. If I make another one of these table runners, I will go this route, since I think the stitches would work really well as hand quilting, too.

Once you’ve finished embroidering your geese, carefully trim the panel into two rows of geese, cutting 1/2″ away from the side points of each row. Do not cut the top or bottom of each row of flying geese. You should now have two embroidered geese panels measuring 5″ x 13 1/2″.

Piecing Flying Geese Four at a Time

With your fabric pieces cut perfectly by the Cricut Maker, or as specified above, piece your flying geese using the four at a time method. I used the Reference section of my Quilter’s Planner to piece mine, and you can also find a download of the page HERE as a little taste of the awesome that is contained in the Quilter’s Planner. (If you don’t have one already, go ahead and buy a Quilter’s Planner 2018 while they are still available!) Note that we are making flying geese that finish at 2″x4″.

Make twelve geese total and sew them into two strips of six as shown above. See how they are mirrored by the embroidered strips? Note that your embroidered strips should be cut apart by this step.

Sewing Tip:

When sewing two geese together, position the point of the goose on top and make sure your stitch line passes exactly through the stitched point of your goose.

This way, you will be sure to never chop off the point of a flying goose ever again!

Once your flying geese rows of six are assembled, sew a 1 1/4″x 4″ piece of background fabric to the top and bottom of each strip. Align with your 13 1/2″ embroidered geese strips, and trim the pieced flying geese strips to 13 1/2″ if needed, being sure that your embroidered geese align with your sewn geese before trimming. There is a little bit of wiggle room included in the top and bottom background rectangles to allow for those who sew scant or generous 1/4″ seams, so trim as needed.

Assembling the Table Runner

First sew together the flying geese panels of the table runner. I’ve arranged mine on top of my backing fabric so that you can clearly see the different pieces being sewn together. With geese facing the same direction, sew the embroidered flying geese section to the pieced flying geese section. Then sew to the 2 1/2″ x 13 1/2″ background rectangle. Make two.

Assemble the table runner top by sewing the sections together as shown above: Note that the embroidered flying geese panels should be sewn to the center background piece on both ends.

Once your table runner top is pieced, position the runner top and batting in the center of your chosen backing fabric, right sides facing away from each other. In other words, layer and baste your table runner and prepare for quilting!

I chose to use Aurifil 50wt 2479- Medium Orchid to quilt my Flying Geese Table Runner with a dense free motion quilting pattern in the center, simple outlines of the pieced flying geese, and dense free motion quilted switchbacks in Aurifil 2021-Natural White between both the pieced and embroidered geese. I wanted the texture but not the visual distraction from my hand stitching.

As you quilt your table runner, be sure to stay 1/4″ away from all edges with your quilting! This will help your binding look great from both the top and the bottom, since we will be using the backing fabric folded over the edges as binding.

Once your table runner is quilted as desired, carefully fold back the backing fabric and trim the batting *just* outside the top of your table runner top. I gave myself a little less than 1/8″ around the edge of my table runner.

Be extra careful not to cut your backing fabric during this step!

Next, trim your backing fabric between 3/4″ and 1″ from the outer edge of your table runner quilt top. Fold the backing so that its raw edge meets the edge of your trimmed quilt top and batting and press. Fold again and top stitch in place, securing your binding to the front of the quilt.

I wanted my binding to be slightly slimmer, so I cut mine 3/4″ from the edge of the table runner top instead of 1″, but choose whichever you prefer.

Ta da! Your table runner is nearly finished! All that remains is to wash out the washable fabric marker lines. I’ve found that the Cricut Washable Fabric Pen easily washes out with a bit of soap and cold water. Note that if you prewash your fabrics, you can wash out the fabric pen before trimming and piecing the embroidery panels into your table runner. I don’t prewash my fabrics, so I opted to wash it all at once after it was completely finished.

Set your Easter table and enjoy! I always love a good bundle of fresh flowers on a table, especially during these early days of spring when the snow is still thick on the ground outside.

After giving my table runner its first wash, and in looking at these photos, I think I will go back and hand quilt within those embroidered flying geese to give them a bit more texture.Enjoy, and I hope you’ll share a photo of your Flying Geese Table Runner if you make one! You can tag me on social media @nightquilter or share a link here in the comments.

Today I’m excited to introduce a new tool I’ve been playing with over the past few weeks: the Cricut Maker. A few months ago, the folks at Cricut asked if they could send a Cricut Maker and starter kit to me in exchange for an honest review. I hesitated at first, since do I really need another cutting machine? But once I began reading up on the Cricut Maker and all of its digital cutting capabilities, including cutting any of your own designs and ability to cut literally hundreds of materials, I decided to say yes. I’m glad I did since this machine can do anything!

This post is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. All opinions are my own and I only share products that I think are awesome. Note that there are no affiliate links included since I live in Maine where affiliate programs aren’t permitted, but I have linked to referenced products for your ease. Business aside, shall we get on with the fun? Let’s!

I’ve played with die cutting machines before, so the concept of a machine to help with the cutting step of quilting is not new to me. Some pros to cutting machines are that they cut perfectly accurately since human error is removed, they are safe since the blade is in the machine and not your hand, and they are versatile. The Cricut Maker is all of these things, but takes versatility to the next level since you can cut all of your own patterns and designs in Cricut Design Space.

I set aside a day where I would have a window of a few hours without any of the kids home to first unbox my Cricut Maker, since I knew that I would need to not only figure out how it works, but also figure out how to use Design Space, where your projects and designs are created. I was pleasantly surprised at how extremely easy and user friendly the entire set up was! I probably could have figured it out with all three kids hanging on me–it was that intuitive!

To set up the Cricut Maker, I just went to the Cricut website and found the set up page. From there, I clicked the green “Get Started” button at the bottom and it walked me through the entire Cricut Maker set up, as well as an introductory greeting card project to help me learn the ropes. All materials for the greeting card project are included with the Maker machine, and because the project uses multiple settings and pens, after creating the quick greeting card, I felt confident enough to dive into making and designing myself! My “new technology” worry was all for naught!

I went into my Cricut Maker exploration day with full intention of diving into its capabilities for the world of quilting, but in exploring the Cricut Design Space, I accidentally–OOPs!–ended up bedazzling one of my daughter’s tank tops with a glittery iron-on unicorn! The Cricut Maker Design Space has a large library of free graphics, templates, and projects and as soon as I saw this unicorn, I knew it just had to make its way into our world.

Cricut sent me a box full of supplies along with the Cricut Maker, and a roll of silver Glitter Iron-on was included. Even though the entire process was new to me, I couldn’t resist figuring out something new. Besides, glitter + unicorns = magical! Another big perk to the Cricut Maker is the huge library of available videos and tutorials available. A simple search found me a huge selection of tutorials, from the actual Learn page on Cricut, to a multitude of YouTube tutorials by craft bloggers.

It didn’t take me long at all to have the unicorn cut since it was a free image already in the Design Space, and the Cricut Weeder tool was the perfect tool to help get the background away from the iron on transfer, all while making me feel like a glittery unicorn-loving dentist. The weeder tool comes in the Cricut Tools Basic Set, which is definitely worth getting if you have a Maker.

Within a half an hour, I had a fully bedazzled unicorn tank, which fortunately my daughter LOVED when she got home from school.

After that brief interruption, I continued to explore the possibilities of the Cricut Maker. Here are a few highlights:

The Cricut Maker comes with a fine point pen, but there are also a wide variety of other pens available for diversified projects. The pen I will likely use most in my quilting is the washable fabric pen. This is great for drawing on cut lines, seam allowances, embroidery guidelines, and more. It’s quite easy to designate lines in Design Space as a drawn line rather than a cut line, too, so you can have the Cricut Maker both draw and cut on the same fabric.

The pens and blade tools are *really* easy to install and switch, since they are held in with an easy snap clamp, and the Cricut Design Space prompts you on what pen or blade to insert before each project so that you’re sure to use the correct blade for your project.

Cricut Maker rotary blade

The Cricut Maker comes with a premium fine point blade, which is used for cutting paper, card stock, vinyl, leather, and other light-weight to medium-weight materials. What makes it really useful for quilters, though, is that it also comes with a rotary blade for cutting fabric.

Using the sticky pink FabricGrip mat and the rotary blade tool, the Cricut Maker can cut standard quilting cotton and other fabrics without needing to stabilize them first. Watching this little rotary cutter at work is super fun, too, since its little robotic lift, turn, press, cut, repeat is like taking a trip to the future.

Now that you’ve seen the rotary blade from every angle, wouldn’t you agree that that’s the cutest little rotary blade you ever did see?

The blades snap into the little B compartment to the right of the A pen holder, and it’s incredible easy to switch blades when needed. The Cricut Maker also has ample space for storage of unused blades, pens, and tools, which is really handy for someone like me who doesn’t have a whole lot of extra storage space.

My hands down favorite features of the Cricut Maker are its design versatility and ease of use. You are not limited by the shape of a specific die, or even by a set library of designs. Because the Cricut Design Space is so user friendly and easy to figure out, and because there are so many fabulous tutorials available to help walk you through the details, I know that the sky’s the limit with design. For a pattern designer like me, that aspect is KEY.

I can see myself using the Cricut Maker for anything from:

fabric cutting for simple and quick sews

designing and making logo vinyl stickers

cutting fabric for my own foundation paper piecing patterns

cutting cardstock papers for English Paper Piecing

cutting templates for meticulous cutting using a thicker material like template plastic

drawing embroidery designs on fabric

cutting clothing patterns using the Simplicity patterns available in Cricut Design Space

I’ve already designed a little robot for my son, who loves robots and goes around telling people that they are either in or falling out of favor in his eyes because of the number of hearts in their heart tanks.

For example, when I do something he really loves, he says, “You just got 10,000 hearts in your heart tank!” and if we tell him he can’t have a second cookie, he says, “Your heart tank is almost empty!” in a warning voice, finger wagging for emphasis. How perfect is this little robot for him? I’m thinking I’ll make it a layered card stock creation to frame for his room. This was easy to make, since the robot is a free image in the Design Space, and adding the heart, customizing colors, and adding the text was very straightforward.

As you can see, one little afternoon with the Cricut Maker, and my to-make list has already grown quite a bit! Can you blame me?

If you plan to use the Cricut Maker for primarily quilting and fabric-related projects, you might want to get the Cricut Maker + Essentials Collection ($459.99), which comes with two larger 12″x24″ FabricGrip Mats and washable fabric pen, among other sewing-related tools. As I said earlier in the post, I don’t have any affiliation with Cricut, so I don’t get anything if you buy one. I’m simply sharing what I know and my experience with the Cricut Maker to help you decide if it’s a tool that would work well in your life.

I’m excited about the world of possibilities that exists with the Cricut Maker, and I’ll be sure to share my projects and experience as they happen. I’m excited about a new knife blade that will be coming out soon that will allow for cutting thicker, tougher materials like balsa wood and chipboard. The Cricut Maker’s Adaptive Tools System™ is perfect for the makers among us who don’t want to be limited to just one craft!

Here’s a sneak peek at a project tutorial I’ll be sharing for the Cricut Maker next week that pairs quilting and embroidery, so stay tuned!

About Me

I’m a stay at home mom of three littles, wife, sewist of quilts and other beautiful things, knitter, gardener, yogi, and all in all lover of life. With three little kids, my only sewing time is after bedtime. Thus the Night Quilter was born. This blog is all about my stitching: both quilting and knitting projects, as well as the creation of my own patterns and any other inspiration I find along the way.

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All images, text, and content on this site are the sole property of Kitty Wilkin of Night Quilter and may not be reproduced, copied, derived, displayed, sold, republished, or transmitted without my permission. I reserve all exclusive rights.
In addition to providing blog sponsorship and paid advertising, I may also occasionally include an affiliate link or a product review within blog posts. I may receive compensation for these, but my opinion is always my own. If I recommend a product or shop, it's because I think it is awesome and I want to share my excitement and experience with you. These sponsorships and affiliate relationships are what help fund writing and maintaining this blog.